If you don’t already know Robert Sawyer, then
I’d like to know what museum your cave is now being displayed in.

His new collection of short stories Iterations
gathers in one place all the pieces of him that you’ve come to know
and love. James Alan Gardner succinctly says it in his introduction - in
capital letters he compels the reader to “BUY THIS BOOK” then “SIT
DOWN AND READ EVERY STORY.”

There is of course, the usual subject fare of
Dinosaurs, Neanderthals and Astronomy (I refer to it as DNA). Astronomy
stories are a bit more nebulous to pick out, but I usually lump into the
category any alien, space exploration and colonization tales. For
instance, in “The Blue Planet”
we discover that Earth is actually a Martian colony while “Star
Light, Star Bright” deals with a Dyson sphere colonized around the
star Tau Ceti. In “The Shoulders
of Giants” cryogenically frozen colonists arrive, only to realize
they have been beaten to the punch by faster ships that were developed
after they left. The most prophetic is “Above
It All” which reminds us of the foolishness of pouring money into
a space program while the solutions to poverty and disease still elude
us. In comparison, the dino and Neanderthal stories are easier to pick
out. After all, what else could “Gator”
or “Peking Man” be about? Except, they’re urban myth and vampire
stories as well. Have I confused you and made you think? Well, that’s
what a good SF writer does and Sawyer’s one of the best.

Combined with the subjects of DNA are a variety of
themes that Sawyer plays upon. In fact, the title Iterations
is not a random one. Explained perfectly in “Iterations”, the title story, is the idea that each action we take
splits us into two different universes and that there are as many
parallel planes of existence as there are decisions that we make. This
is almost as clear in the Sherlock Holmes story
“You See But You Do Not Observe” where Holmes tells us that
Schrodinger’s cat is to blame for the failure of the SETI program.
Religion seems to be another theme that is played upon in such stories
as “The Contest” where The Party in Power (also known as G--) and the
Opposition (D----) see who gets to claim the life of a random soul. It
appears again in the self-explanatory titles, ”The
Abdication of Pope Mary III” and “Fallen
Angel”.

In every story, there seems to be a happy-go-lucky
character or moment. (“If I’m
Here, Imagine Where They Sent My Luggage” comes to mind
immediately) In fact, I think that fear and death are only a means
necessary to the end of creating a story for Sawyer and it says
something quite profound about his personality. If you look closely,
Sawyer’s other beliefs shine through the writing. There is no such
thing as infidelity, and each person or being has a specific place, as
in “Lost in the Mail”
where a writer is redirected down the “right” path and converted
into a paleontologist, with the help of a mysterious mailman. I think
that’s why Sawyer finds the idea of iterations so fascinating – that
there are other universes out there that follow the different choices we
have made. There is a past to alter and a future full of potential
decisions.

My only problem with Sawyer is that he has the
outgoing personality of an American. He actively promotes his titles and
not only do his books win awards, but so does his website. (Usually
writers have only one half of this winning combination of talent and
ambition.) As we see in “Wiping Out”, he can write (gasp) space
opera and in “The Hand You’re Dealt” (among others) mystery. He
seems to have ignored the general principle that Canadian authors must
write speculative fiction, about the gray areas, and not be so black,
white and energetic all over. Sawyer’s enthusiasm for his homeland and
the intentional nature with which he slips in geographical locations
north of the border and other bits of Canada (I caught the name Terry
Fox), is to realize that perhaps there is hope for Canadian nationalism
and identity. But that’s what makes Robert Sawyer so unique.

In conclusion, do yourself a favor and make one
less iteration out there because the universe where you doesn’t have a
copy of Iterations on your
shelf is a sad place indeed.